Battleship 2

If there was one thing you could rely on in the crazy world of computer entertainment, it was that if there was a board game out there, Hasbro would convert it to PC. But Hasbro's demise as a games publisher in December means that Battleship 2 will be the last board game conversion, which means, compared to such travesties as Star Wars Monopoly, Hasbro has gone out on a relative high. For although the 'you've sunk my battleship' turn-based 'classic' option is marginally better than playing on scraps of paper, the single-player action campaign is quite a lot of fun (ie nothing like the board game at all). Entirely similar to Overboard, the 1997 game that no one will remember, Battlseship 2s arcade missions task you simply with getting your rather nippy cruiser from one side of a map to the other, via, of course, the water. To stop you are other ships, submarines, shore-based cannons, biplanes and zeppelins, all of which if hit with enough shots, will erupt into flames and cause your score to increase.

In some missions you must rescue life rafts, in others destroy buildings and throughout all you can find power-ups floating around as crates in the briny, some with extra weapons, boosts of speed or health. So far, pretty formulaic and even to a small child with no thumbs, fairly easy to get half-way through the game without too much effort. That said, the game is fairly addictive, well designed and attractive - perfectly suited to anyone at an age too young to play with seamen of their own.